A run of cable TV-style advertisements opens Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022), and amongst them is an ad for something called a RoboSanta+, a kind of seasonal cross between a decorative item – and a top-level piece of mall security. And why not?! It’s no detriment to the film that it’s completely clear this bit of kit is going to feature heavily in what happens from here; in fact, the way that the film continually wears its heart on its sleeve and so readily flags up its intentions is a big part of what makes this film work so well. It’s a delight.
We don’t stay in this retro setting for long: we skip forward to the present day, our world of Tinder and Reddit and social media (mentioned in the script for clarity) and meet record store owner Tori (Riley Dandy), who is about to close up on Christmas Eve, though agrees to have a few drinks with her clearly hot-for-boss employee Robbie (Sam Delich) on the way home. They head off, stopping by the nearby toy store to see their friends and clocking the store’s very own RoboSanta while they’re there; it’s a now-obsolete system, and all remaining models are about to get recalled (a kind of twist on the ‘detective’s last day’ trope perhaps, only flipped, so it’s the antagonist who’s about to have an eventful evening). As anticipated, RoboSanta is soon up and about, and he sees everyone as a potential threat; he starts with the toy store, but he has picked up on Tori and Robbie’s recent presence there and tracks them back to Tori’s, where they now are.
And so we’re off, in a film which has some similarities to Hardware (1990) in terms of its uncomplicated story, killer robot home invasion aspects and aesthetic detail – but the newer film is far more grisly and heady, incorporating more horror genres: we get slasher, a dash of splatter, and a little sci-fi of course, which moves more and more into the foreground as the film progresses. All of this is framed by an incredibly lurid, colour-saturated presentation – Begos has refined this approach more and more with each film he’s done – and so it looks great, glaring with festive red and green, but also rich with shifting palettes and an effective use of light. It looks 80s retro in places throughout, despite the contemporary timeframe, but it’s effective here, as the film itself is an homage to any number of horror films from that era (and just before, and just after).
Speaking of which, the Venn diagram of rock, horror and hard liquor – which surely we can all agree exists – is played for fun in the first half of the film, with horror and music fandom exerting an influence over many of Christmas Bloody Christmas‘s key elements – characterisation, settings, props, and dialogue. The script itself also works well: these are plausible, likeable, funny people, and relationships hang together just as they should, throwing in some overblown dialogue in places, but lines which are perfectly in keeping with the vibe of the film. In very little time, the film establishes its key characters as well-rounded enough and likeable enough to make us care about the outcomes. That all being said, the film feels primed from its first seconds for ultraviolence, and when it comes, it’s welcome.
The film’s occasional use of a ‘Santa’s eye view’ gave this reviewer some small concern that this was going to turn into a means of avoiding the kinds of unflinching, gory scenes which the film had so clearly set up. And, in RoboSanta’s first few moments as a killing machine, this did seem to be the case – the camera swings, veers and ultimately blurs what’s going on, at first. Happily, things don’t stay this way; they really don’t stay this way; there are lots of fan-pleasing set pieces throughout, which get more and more OTT as the film moves, with very few lulls, towards its close. It seems churlish to complain that RoboSanta (Abraham Benrubi) isn’t a massively convincing robot, as you’ll likely soon be ready to just go with it. Suspending your disbelief here is both a genre fan’s dream and the best course of action. The film also sets up later scenes of panic and disaster which only a horror fan, as opposed to simply a horror director, ever could (and, by the by, that is how you do a director cameo).
The film may have started off as a different kind of Christmas horror entirely, but its progression into a bloody, entertaining, unrestrained genre mash-up makes for a really fun film. Essentially, you’d have to be very easily bored or very hard to please in order to dislike Christmas Bloody Christmas: it’s a film which may just edge onto that hallowed list of Christmas cult horrors, given some time. Final note: somehow, and I’m not sure how it really finds the time, it even manages to feel really festive…
Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) hits Shudder on December 9th 2022.